Talking with Boba Fett – an Exclusive Interview with Jeremy Bulloch

Nerd Nation Magazine recently sat down with Jeremy Bulloch – best known for his role as the fan-favorite bounty hunter Boba Fett in the original Star Wars Trilogy. This interview was originally recorded by our correspondent Dave Ward at the 2016 Days of the Dead convention, and since we now have had time to transcribe it, we present it to you here in its raw, unedited format.

See the full interview below!

Nerd Nation:Dave Ward here with Nerd Nation Magazine and I am here with the one and only, true Boba Fett, Jeremy Bulloch. How are you doing today?

Jeremy Bulloch:“I’m doing very well, and interesting; Nerd Nation I’ve never heard of that before.”

NN:We’re fairly new. We’re about a year and a half old, we started doing a lot of the convention circuit and trying to expand our name and everything.

JB:“Oh that’s good. Well it’s the right thing to do. Its nice, there are a lot of people in here over the weekend, very busy yesterday but for a Sunday, I think it’s very good and we are milling around not knowing what’s going to happen but it’s good.”

NN:Great, yeah; we don’t get a whole lot of conventions around here so when they do come around we come out in force.

JB: “Yeah, I noticed. (laughs)”

NN:Yeah we love our fandom just like anybody else does. So, for the people out there that don’t know much about what you’ve done aside from Star Wars, what else have you done?

JB:“Well, I started when I was young; when I was 12 years old, [I] managed to dance a bit and muck about and have fun but then got into a soap opera, then did Robin of Sherwood, Doctor Who, Bond Films So it went from one to another and I was lucky, but you have to take your luck and make the best of it.”

NN:What Bond films were you in?

JB:“Octopussy, For Your Eyes Only and The Spy Who Loved Me, I played Q’s assistant. It was just a cameo where he nods to Bond and he said “Morning Bond.” And you know. So, that was fun. And Roger Moore and I did the three movies and he was terrific. I mean, he was such fun.”

NN: I’ve heard a lot of similar reactions when people talk about Roger Moore. That he’s just a joy to work with and be around.

JB:“Oh and giggling far too much. (laughs) making fun of me some bit. but he, you know, when you’re with somebody that you feel ‘yeah it’s okay I can have a few jokes here with him’ and then he’d go say ‘you’re learning fast, Bullock’ you know, so yes, he was a nice man.”

NN:That’s very cool. So how did the Star Wars role come about because there seems to be a lot of English actors in the first three.

JB:“Yeah the first one was shot… sorry, the first three were shot in Elstree Studios in England and I went up for the part, you know, my half-brother said ‘well, there’s a part here but it’s not very big it’s a couple of days, maybe’ I said ‘Oh no, that’d be great, thanks.’ You know. But then I had a job to get into the theater so I ended up almost doing three jobs at once.”

NN:Oh wow.

JB:“Which I managed to do the one, then it was between the two and they said ‘well, thanks very much’ and they said ‘we’ll see you on the next one. What do you think? Boba Fett doesn’t speak much.’”

NN:No, Not at all. (laughs)

JB:“So it was just one of those joyful, joyful shows to do.”

NN:Did you ever think that this would become so popular, or rather that your role as Boba Fett would explode as much as it did?

JB:“Well, no, you never thought it was going to be -huge- you know, but what you did do [was] go ‘God, that, wasn’t that nice? That was quite fun, you know, Science Fiction. Oh its great!’ and then you forgot about it and went on to your next job which was a Theater play for six months. So I managed to see the film when it came out six months later or so- and then they said ‘we’d like you for the next one Jeremy but you, um, you don’t last very long.’ And I said ‘Oh! Oh, Okay.’ (Laughs)”

NN:Now we all know Boba Fett worked for Darth Vader, but did you ever have any real big dealings with David Prowse, did you work with him a lot during it?

JB:“No, not really. I knew him though; I knew that my wife used to go to his gym. He used to train different people, [like] Superman and such. I knew quite a few actors in it and he used to come and do bits and pieces and things so I’ve worked with him before in film and theater.”

NN:Awesome. So anything new coming up for you?

JB:“No. At the moment I’m, you know, doing voice stuff. There’s a couple of things [where] they said ‘would you do this’ and I said ‘yeah’ … but other than that there’s my ten children.”

NN:Ten?!

JB:“Sorry, Grandchildren.”

NN:Wow!

JB:“And they’re, They’re great but you know I want to spend more time with them. But, you know, an event will come up in the year and maybe two or three more happen in South America so we tend to go because that’s interesting.”

NN:Oh, I’ve never been, I’ll bet South America is interesting.

JB:“Yeah. I can play football with the young kids there, you see, because they’re all very classy so I can flick the ball up and volley it past them and go ‘gotta watch kid’ (laughs)”

NN:(laughs) I assume you mean watch the guy that knows what he’s doing.

JB: “Oh, absolutely.”

NN:Well it was a pleasure talking thanks for taking some time out for us.

JB:“Thank you, it was a pleasure. Take care.”

For more on Jeremy Bulloch, or to see a list of his autograph signing/convention appearances check out his official website at: www.jeremybulloch.com